Q4OS Forum

Steve

Member

Registered: 2015-12-07

Posts: 14

Q4OS for Raspberry Pi 2

Having asked a couple of questions at the Sourceforge forum earlier, I thought I would make a more general post here.

In the early days of the Raspberry Pi, when it was still a fad, several developer groups tried to put together systems that would allow the original RPi to be used as a basic desktop computer.  That work was effectively sabotaged by the simple fact that the main processor in the original RPi was just not fast enough for certain basic desktop functions, especially web surfing.  The systems that thrived were those that provided specialised functionality.  OpenELEC being the obvious example.

When the RPi2 arrived nine months ago the irony was that while the RPi2 did have the power to be used as a basic desktop computer, the systems that once aimed to provide that functionality had mostly faded into oblivion.  I've been wating to see how long it would be before we had a new generation of desktop OS for RPi2.

The new Q4OS for RPi2 looks like a success to me. 

The Debian project is in many respects the backbone of Linux.  The term 'Debian derivative'  inspires confidence.  Do I used Debian?  No, I despair of Debian.  I use Debian derivative systems that allow me to install Debian packages, but I don't use Debian.

Debian has a security philosophy.  And like most things about Debian it is admirable.  If you have multiple (human) users on a small network sharing common resources, Debian security is just right.  But applying the same security philosophy to a single user, stand alone PC is nonsense.  It's completely inappropriate.  And when the PC in question is actually a tiny Raspberry Pi, the whole thing becomes surreal.

When I booted up Q4OS on a RPi2 for the first time I immediately realised what I was coming.  It wanted a password.  I had to visit this website to find out what the default password was. 

I live alone.  No-one else comes near my PC's and I don't (willingly) use passwords.  I simply don't need them.  Fortunately Q4OS allows you to switch off the whole logon procedure.  One click and it's done.  But I think an opt-in for password protection would be more appropriate than an opt-out.  The really impressive part was how easy it was to install my favourite applications and tailor the system appearance to suit my own tastes.  Then it was a question of what I could do with this new system. 

I wanted to mount a partition that had not automatically mounted.   I instinctively opened a terminal and typed in a mount command.  But there was Debian, waving an admonishing finger, telling me that they had decided not to give me 'permission' to use my own computer the way I wanted to use it.  I know a bit about Linux, and I did get the partition mounted, only to find that 'root' was the owner of the partition and as 'user' I was still locked out from my own system by Debian's overblown and insufferable security philosophy.  Put your hand up if Debian has ever told you that you don't have 'permission' to access your own data.

There are two ways of resolving issues of this kind:  You can totally dump Debian security (as Puppy Linux has done) or you can allow root login.  For Q4OS I would vote for the latter.

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 4,501

Website

Re: Q4OS for Raspberry Pi 2

There is 'sudo' command to execute commands under root permissions. For example, mount third partition on the SD card:
$ sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p2 /mnt/your-mount-dir

Steve

Member

Registered: 2015-12-07

Posts: 14

Re: Q4OS for Raspberry Pi 2

In my opinion, requiring ordinary users (who may know little or nothing of the internals of Linux) to use sudo commands to perform basic system administration, sets the bar too high.  Everything should be possible via the system GUI.

By the way, in respect of my partition mounting problem, when I got my first RPi2 in March, I ran Raspbian on it.  After writing the Raspbian image onto the card, I created a extra partition (for my private data) which filled the remaining free space on the card.  Raspbian mounted that partition successfully on first boot and as user I had read-write access to it.

There is a reason why Linux has about a 3% share of the desktop OS 'market'.  Most people are initally exposed to Microsoft's operating system.  Once they become exasperated with Windows (versions 8 and 10 are doing wonderful work in this respect) they give Linux a try, only to give up because Linux is so difficult to use.  Then they turn to Apple.  I believe the problems which stem from Debian's complex and overdone security philosophy are a principal cause of Linux being difficult to use.

The first Linux system I ever built was a Debian 4 system.  I was allowed to log-in as root.  Something that I did whenever I had a system administration task to perform.  The rest of the time I logged-in as user.  Everything was simple, everthing worked.  Then it became fashionable to ban root log-in, and the administration of Linux systems became a much more difficult task.

People who use a Raspberry Pi tend to be hobbyists.  They have a certain mentality.  They want to get things working and are prepared to take any route and any short-cut to achive that.  They are not people who 'play by the book'.  And they are not impressed when they are told that they don'y have 'permission' to move towards their goal.

The Raspberry Pi operating system is on an SD card.  It's the easiest thing in the world to put that card into another PC and edit the OS while it's off-line.  Of course it's not good practice, but the greater the degree of difficulty in making administrative changes via the system GUI, the greater the temptation to go down that route.

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 4,501

Website

Re: Q4OS for Raspberry Pi 2

You can browse available logical disks via GUI too. Open 'My Computer' on desktop -> Storage Media -> double click disk partition to open.